Long questions of the chapter ,"Reach for the top."
Answers
Answer:
Question 1.
What made Santosh Yadav achieve fame and greatness?
Answer:
Santosh Yadav is the only woman in the world who has scaled Mt Everest twice. Santosh Yadav scaled Mt Everest when she was barely twenty years of age, becoming the youngest woman in the world to achieve the feat. Within twelve months, Santosh scaled the Everest a second time as a member of an Indo-Nepalese Women’s Expedition. She thus set a record as the only woman to have scaled the Everest twice.
Question 2.
Why was the ‘holy man’, who gave Santosh’s mother his blessings, surprised?
Answer:
The holy man expected that like all other families in the villages, the family would also wish for the birth of a son. However, when he was told by Santosh’s grandmother that they wanted to have a daughter, he was surprised.
Question 3.
What kind of society was Santosh born in?
Answer:
Santosh was born in Joniyawas, a small village in the Rewari District in Haryana. The society in this region was very conservative and orthodox. People were rigidly patriarchal and gender-biased. The birth of a girl was generally unwelcome and people strictly adhered to conservative traditions.
Question 4.
The grandmother wished her daughter-in-law give birth to a daughter. What light does this throw on her character?
Answer:
Despite being the member of a conservative family, the grandmother wished to be blessed with a granddaughter. This was because there were already five boys in the family. Hence, the family now wished for a daughter. This also shows her as a woman of progressive views.
Question 5.
What do you know about Santosh’s family?
Answer:
Santosh was born into an affluent family of landlords in a village, Joniyawas, in the Rewari district of Haryana. She was the sixth child in a conservative family, the only sister to five brothers. Though financially well-off, her family was orthodox and conservative in matters related to the education and upbringing of girls.
Question 6.
Why was Santosh sent to the local school?
Answer:
Santosh’s parents were affluent and could afford to send Santosh to a school in Delhi. But they sent her to the local village school because they strictly followed tradition and it was customary in their society to send girls to the local school only.
Question 7.
How was Santosh different from the other girls of her village?
Answer:
Unlike other girls of her village, Santosh was not content with the traditional way of life. She used to wear shorts and went on to study further at Delhi. She did not get married at sixteen as most of the girls of her village did.
Question 8.
Why was Santosh Yadav not content with a traditional way of life? What path did she choose and why?
Answer:
Right from childhood, Santosh was not content with a traditional way of life and felt that if she chose a correct and a rational path, the others around her had to change, not she. She wanted to chart her own course in life, rather than following the age-old customs and traditions. She wore shorts instead of traditional attire, went to study in Delhi when girls in her village got married. When her parents refused to pay for her education, she got them to agree by informing them of her plans to earn money by working part time to pay. her school fees. She chose the path of excellence through education, rational thinking and hard work and achieved unparalleled success as a woman mountaineer.
Question 9.
When did Santosh leave home for Delhi, and why?
Answer:
Santosh left home for Delhi when she turned sixteen because her parents had begun to pressurize her to get married in keeping with the traditional practice in their community. She decided that it was the right moment to rebel and she quietly got herself enrolled in a school in Delhi to continue her studies.
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